


Too Long We Have Tarried

by haemodye



Series: Here Comes A Candle [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, John's the most patient man on earth, John-centric, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Red Pants Monday, Romance, Sherlock's a bit of an idiot when it comes to feelings, Sickfic, but only peripherally I swear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-11-28 22:44:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haemodye/pseuds/haemodye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>These are the little things he needs; a warm pulse, a bright eye, and Sherlock, here, alive.</i>
</p><p>Wherein John has the flu, Sherlock is the World's Most Aggressive Caretaker, and Lestrade is much cleverer than Sherlock thinks he is. Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/589218">A Certain Kind of Man</a> but you don't, strictly speaking, have to read that before you read this one. Second in a series of vignettes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mince & Quince

**Author's Note:**

> It says 1/3 but it could be 2 or 4 chapters at the end depending on how this turns out. Not too long, though, regardless. Title from the famous Edward Lear poem, of course, but very little plot relation.

 

John dreams.

“John.”

John dreams that Sherlock’s mouth tastes like the acrid sting of peppers and the heat is going to drown him in silence. Long fingers tuck into his ribcage as John tries to reach out, to tug him into some physical form of embrace while Sherlock’s clever nails are slipping soft under the skin. There is hunger as he inhales, long bone sliding between his ribs, the click of a hinge and his chest is opening like a cabinet, gleaming ivory macabre. Sherlock lifts his heart out, piece by piece, and pulls away to examine them like a puzzle.

_“John, what is it you want from me?”_

He holds the dripping muscle up to the light, held out for John to see in all its ruin.

“John?”

John opens his mouth, but his throat is choked with blood.

“John!”

John comes to, coughing, spitting snot and liquid up and for a moment it’s too blinding to process anything. Slowly, bits and pieces come together as he hiccoughs and gasps: the acrid sting of his throat, the frantic tone of Sherlock’s voice, the bone-crushing hand clamped hard around his own.

“Unbelievable, you’re supposed to be a doctor! You claimed you could take care of yourself and I told you to kip on the sofa; I wasn’t gone more than two hours at most, John, _honestly-_ ”

John waves a hand, and Sherlock falls silent for a moment. When he can, he glances over to find the thin line of Sherlock’s lips, drawn tight with clear displeasure.

“You know better to take a bath, alone, with your fever-”

“Sherlock,” John rasps, and he hisses as cold glass is pressed to his lips.

“Drink.”

John drinks, and it’s cold and simply glorious, before he remembers: one, that he is naked, and two, that he has seemingly just had a dream about kissing Sherlock. This spurs another coughing fit, and Sherlock hisses and pulls the glass away. His nails dig pink moons into John’s hand.

“How do you expect us to solve cases when you can’t even stand?” Sherlock demands, and John favours him with a flat look when he can manage it again.

“Oh, it’s _us_ now?”

Sherlock looks as though he’s been slapped, and John winces: too soon, that.

 “Can you… I’m in the _bath_.”

Sherlock shoots him a look that clearly reads _“Yes, and…?”_

John licks his lips and stares at him for a moment before giving this entire day up as a bad job. He flexes his fingers between Sherlock’s and tips his head back towards the ceiling.

Sherlock’s pulse is a grounding rhythm between their skin, a steady drum to arms. For a moment, John can see the theatre basement from weeks ago, Sherlock’s blood slick between his fingers as his body betrayed him, cramped and shaking with post-traumatic stress. He knows that Sherlock is waiting for John to forgive him, but it’s not as easy as that; it’s not his forgiveness that’s the issue, it’s his subconscious, and there’s no apology that Sherlock can forge to change his mind. What John needs is this; here is his pulse and his breath. They are the facts of Sherlock’s manic existence.

Barely a week after what John has started calling the Kitchen Wobbly Incident, St. Barts was overrun with flu patients. From what he’d heard on the news, it seemed that New York City was already out of vaccinations, and that this flu season was breaking records. John had worked exactly one shift before getting infected, despite his inoculations. He has a sneaking suspicion that running after Sherlock in the dead of a rainy night, not sleeping, and worrying endlessly hadn’t exactly done wonders for his immune system, but there was nothing for it now. He was infected, and apparently, a bad patient.

“All doctors are bad patients, yeah?”

Sherlock snorts and presses the glass to his lips again. John cracks one eye to catch his fleeting smile before he drinks. 

Sherlock had taken one look at him this morning and declared that John was too sick to interact with the rest of humanity “except Anderson, because he needs to be excised from the gene pool”. He’d then, apparently, decided that his new job was not World’s Only Consulting Detective but World’s Most Aggressive Caretaker. This involved lots of him ordering John to do thinks like take pills and eat things and _not move a muscle_ while he went out for a very much unexplained hour and a half, when all John wanted to do was lie in bed and feel miserable in peace. John had just needed something for his shoulder; every single part of his body ached. He felt like he’d been run down by a lorry. So he’d hobbled into the loo and settled down for a hot bath. The steaming water felt like bliss.

Which yes, was not advisable with a fever, but John was a doctor. He knew what he was doing.

“Can you imagine,” he asks an increasingly incredulous Sherlock, “John Hamish Watson – survived a bullet to the chest, death by way of bathtime napping.”

“John, you are delirious. Get out of the water.”

John offers a half-smile and cracks one eye open. “No.”

Sherlock’s jaw tightens. “Based on the amount of perspiration on your skin and the temperature of your hands, I’d say you’re running at _least_ forty degrees. You cannot expect me to leave you here in hot water, proverbial or otherwise, so I will say it again and _only_ once more; get. Out. Of the bath.”

John sighs and immediately regrets it; the sharp exhalation sets his throat aflame. “Sherlock. Still naked.”

“John,” Sherlock parrots, infuriatingly patronising, “you still cannot walk.”

“I can walk fine!” John protests, but using his voice at this volume causes him to cough so hard his vision blurs into colours and spots of light. A mess of black and cream resolves into Sherlock’s most pointed expression, and John glares right back at him for a futile moment. “Fine. Turn around.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes.

“Careful, or they’ll get stuck up there.”

Sherlock stares at him as though he’s gone round the twist. “John.”

“Turn, Sherlock.”

Sherlock grumbles and turns his head away, his left hand stubbornly laced with John’s right. He tugs at John’s arm as he fixes his eyes to the en suite door. “Up.”

John stands, shivering as the cold air hits his overheated skin. He takes the offered towel and wraps it around his waist, wobbling on unsteady feet. When he looks up, Sherlock is smirking triumphantly at the door.

“You can walk _fine_ , hm?”

John scowls, waiting for his body to steady. “You’re not supposed to be looking.”

“You’re sick as a dog, John, and pretending otherwise is a fantastic display of stupidity. Now, sit down.” Sherlock turns and helps him step over the lip of the tub, pushing him onto the lid of the toilet. He offers John a clean t-shirt and some cotton trousers.

“These are mine.”

“Yes, very observant,” Sherlock lauds. John restrains the childish urge to hit him. “Put them on. Do you think you can manage- no, never mind. You can sleep in my room tonight.”

“Now, wait a minute-”

“I’ve brought soup, but you’ll need to bring the fever down first so finish that water.” Sherlock fixes him with a glare. “Hurry up and get better. Lestrade has a case.”

“Sherlock! I can’t just get better on command.” Sherlock ignores this, pulling the plug and letting the bathwater run out. “And what’s stopping you from going off on your own like you always do?”

“John, I left you alone for an hour and forty seven minutes and you nearly drowned yourself. Last week I went on a case without you and you had a tantrum in the kitchen. Clearly -”

“Oi! I’m not a bloody child, what’re you on about-”

“Put on your clothes.”

He is gone before John can reply.

This is the habit with Sherlock, of course: disappearing, and to hell with the rest. Last week, Sherlock had tried to force John out of the flat because he’d deduced that his return was aggravating John’s PTSD. Accurate, like the majority of Sherlock’s deductions, but as usual what had tripped him up was applying the data. Sherlock’s mind is an intricate working of fact and hypothesis, farce and manoeuvre, and John knows better than anyone how emotions can tangle the cogs. Rationally, John knows he is not the only one that forces Sherlock’s brain to skip a track every now and again; that would be arrogant, farce bordering on kalopsia, and John has always been an honest man. What he does know is that Sherlock has changed his _behaviour_ for one man and one man only in recent years, and that man is standing near-naked in his en suite bathroom.

He pulls the shirt on blearily, blinking the fever-sleep out of his eyes and pulling on his trousers. Sherlock has also brought him a pair of red pants, mercifully tucked between the other clothes in some travesty of privacy. They’d been a gift from Harry a few Christmases past, a joke that had become a talisman. Then, Harry had been beaming bright, sober and clinging to Clara like the woman was a magnet and she, the remnants of iron filings pulled astray. Without Clara she’d collapsed back into her addiction like so many scattered metal chinks, but the pants still make him smile a bit. John wonders if Sherlock had picked them specifically because he’d deduced this, but the thought of Sherlock deducing anything involving his pants is too horrifying to truly contemplate so John pulls on his clothes with fair haste.

When he stumbles into the hall he can smell food and chemicals, the typical sharp tinge that John has come to associate with home. He can smell it on Sherlock when they go out together, clinging to his curls and scattering free in his wake as he vibrates with excited agitation. When he enters the kitchen, Sherlock is staring at a file from the Met, nibbling idly at a plate of penne all’arrabbiata and drumming his fingers on the table. He smiles at John when he takes the seat across from him.

“Is this Italian wedding soup?” John blinks down at the bowl, slightly dumbstruck. “You went out and got food. And I’m guessing you nicked that from Lestrade, while you were at it?”

Sherlock looks up from his folder, raising an eyebrow. John translates this into an admonishment about asking stupid questions.

“We have soup here, you know.”

Sherlock sneers and turns back to the file. “ _Canned._ ”

John smiles and takes a sip. “I’m not a snob like some people; canned soup is fine.”

“You’ve been nauseated on and off, and the preservatives would have likely led to this night ending with your head in the toilet. I thought it prudent to pick up something you’d find appetizing, as we’re all out of decongestant as well.” Sherlock glanced up and tipped his head to the side, considering John’s face for a moment. “You’re not quite congested at this state, but taking it pre-emptively will ensure you’re able to sleep through the night instead of coughing. More sleep, faster healing, the faster you can get out to Catford to see the crime scene. Double murder, a young couple just moved in; nothing tripped the alarm, nothing stolen, but _John_.” John bites back a laugh at the gleeful expression on Sherlock’s face. “They’ve been _skinned_.”

“Skinned?” John repeats, dumbfounded. “And how’d you know this was my favourite?”

Sherlock ignores both of these questions in favour of unwrapping the garlic bread. He tears off a piece and offers it to John, pointing to two capsules by a glass of water. “Take those.”

John wrinkles his nose at the mental image of the skinned couple, but swallows the aspirin down anyway. “So, you went to see a crime scene and somehow still remembered to pick up medicine and food for me?” John grins. “I’m touched.”

“Eat,” Sherlock orders, ducking his head. John smiles at him while he dips the garlic bread into his soup. He believes in rewarding good behaviour.  

“No, but really, Sherlock. You didn’t have to-”

“I upset you, last week.” John licks his lips, waiting for Sherlock to emerge from behind his files. After a moment Sherlock closes the folder and sets it down on the table, always careful not to spill crime scene photos everywhere after John’s last talk about food and dead people not mixing well. John could swear there is a bit of colour in his cheeks. “You’re well aware I meant to save your life – and that of Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson – and I did things, John, that you would not… _approve_ of, in order to maintain the safety of those who unfortunately matter to me in some regard or another: Molly, specifically, because she knew.”

Sherlock is fidgeting restlessly, knee occasionally knocking against the table as he flexes his foot. Long fingers drum sharp against the scratched wood. On impulse, John reaches out to cover his twitching hand with his own, and Sherlock’s eyes snap to his, searching.

“I don’t understand what it is that you want from me, John.”  John inhales painfully as déjà vu slices through the fever. Sherlock’s hesitance has transformed into frustration, and John tightens his fingers in the hope that it will prevent it from turning to rage. So often with Sherlock this seems to be the case, and so John waits patiently for his mouth to catch up to his brain. “You told me once that friends protect people, as if I was unaware of the universal requirements of the average human friendship-”

“Sherlock, you know I didn’t mean anything I said then.”

“Didn’t you?” Sherlock demands. He yanks his hand out of John’s fingers, nostrils flaring for a moment before he settles, breath held in his chest. “Just, forget it, finish your soup and take your decongestant. Perhaps tomorrow afternoon Molly can show you the bodies.”

John opens his mouth to argue, but the look on Sherlock’s face silences him. Sherlock is cleverer than maybe every man on the planet, but he has a heart where Moriarty had none. As fragile and hesitant as his affection is, John knows that this is Sherlock’s apology; he is learning, even without the advantage of knowing the rules.

“I’ll eat if you eat,” John says, finally. Sherlock eyes his barely-touched plate with disdain.

“I’m on a case, John.”

“You’re picking at it because your body wants to eat, and I know you’re not sleeping tonight if you're offering me your bed because you don't want me on the stairs.”

Sherlock glares, but he takes another bite. John smiles softly and turns back to his soup.

“So, dead couple. Notice anything interesting?”

John leans into the animated hum of Sherlock’s monologue, enjoying the return of his vibrant, manic excitement. These are the little things he needs; a warm pulse, a bright eye, and Sherlock, here, alive.


	2. Honey & Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, sorry, sorry - much later update than anticipated. But look, there's finally some Johnlock!

 

 

“John.”

John furrows his brows, floating at the edge of a dream for one delicious moment before settling back into his body. He achieves consciousness with an almost physical thud, and he blinks up into the darkness snatching at the edges of it without much effect. Sherlock is sitting at the edge of the bed, smoothing a cold towel over his forehead with an unseen hand. His body is a grey silhouette in the gloam.

“Sh’lock?” John slurs, catching hold of his wrist. Something small is pressed to his lips, and he opens blearily. Smooth wax touches his tongue, and for a moment the heat of his mouth grazes the bitter tips of Sherlock’s fingers. A glass of water follows the pill, and he drinks it down.

“Your fever has progressed to potentially alarming heights, John.” Sherlock tugs at John’s grip, transferring his fingers to the space above his knee. John holds tight, measuring the pulse there. He can feel his anxiety settle, and he wonders idly if that was Sherlock’s intention all along; embarrassing, but Sherlock has always been able to read him – or anyone, come to think of it – with ease. “It might be prudent to take you to a hospital.”

John frowns at this, struggling to sit up, but Sherlock presses him down again. His entire body is thrumming, shivers trickling through the taut muscle as he takes stock of his limbs. He is dizzy, disoriented: definitely Not Good. John shakes his head slightly at a sweeping sense of _déjà vu._

“Why are you being so nice to me?” he asks, laughing a little, and Sherlock leans down close. To John it seems that he presses his lips to the damp, matted mess of his hair, but he knows this is just the fever. He tightens his fingers in the flesh of Sherlock’s femur, his thumb digging into the artery until their pulses beat as one. Sherlock does not respond to his question as he pulls away.

“Hospital?” he asks instead, but John shakes his head. Sherlock runs the cold cloth over his neck. “John.”

John shakes his head. “I’ll be fine.”

“ _John_.”

“ _Sher_ -lock,” John drawls in a poor approximation of his voice, and Sherlock huffs at his teasing. John smiles blearily at him; even in the darkness, he knows Sherlock will be able to tell. “Juice. You can leave the towel on my forehead, but not too much cold-”

“I know how to treat a fever, John.”

“You’re worried, which is sweet, but I’m a doctor and taking me in will just mean sitting in the waiting room for an hour while they process me because I’m a low risk patient. If we’re lucky, they’ll give me better pills than the ones we’ve got, but if not then it’ll just be a waste of time and money and you’ll be bored out of your mind. I’m _not_ going to the hospital.”

Sherlock snarls, low and irritated, deep in the back of his throat. “You stubborn, ado-”

“Oi, you’re one to talk.”

Sherlock presses the glass to his lips again to shut him up, but John drinks anyway. He knows he needs the fluids. “I may have used the juice for an experiment last week.”

John splutters, coughing as water surges up and stings him through his nostrils. Sherlock pats his chest gingerly as he coughs.

“Sorry,” he mutters petulantly, and John is caught between irritation and amusement for a moment before deciding on the latter. Laughter hurts as much as the coughing had.

“I can’t believe you.”

“It was impor-”

“I know. It’s always important.”

Sherlock swallows audibly, and John winces: partially from the pain, and partially at his own callousness. “I’m sorry.”

“Jesus, could you stop apologising?” John grumbles, head swimming dangerously. Sherlock tenses under his fingers, and he halts for a moment before realising he’s spoken aloud. “Fuck. I just mean-… I mean, I didn’t mean-”

Sherlock is shaking, and John panics for a moment before registering the low sound of his laughter. “Careful. Coherent thought is nearly beyond you when you’re well.”

“Hey, now,” John protests, but he’s smiling.

Sherlock smooths the towel over his forehead again. “I could run you a cool bath.”

“I thought I wasn’t allowed in the bath.”

“Not in a hot bath, alone, with a fever,” Sherlock growls, and John breaks into a lazy smile.

“No bathing alone? People will really talk.” Well. Mostly, he can’t fathom the idea of moving when he can barely keep his head from spinning now. “I’m sleeping in your bed, you’re offering to run me a bath, you’re being nice-”

“Am I really so cruel so often?”

“Yes, you prat.” Sherlock stiffens again. “It’s alright, you know. I don’t expect anything from you. You’re you, and I’m me, and we’ve got our place in this, so. It’s fine.”     

There is a long minute where the only sound is the cloth sliding over John’s skin. The soft rustle of it grounds him in the room, the heat of Sherlock’s body marking small coals of contact along John’s right side. The light behind him creates a soft halo of light around the mess of curls John has always had a childish urge to tug at, and he can feel himself smiling deliriously at the idea. As a child he’d pressed pencils and paperclips into Rachel Klein’s curls until she noticed and turned to stare disbelievingly at him. She’d thrown her books at him in righteous fury, but he’d had a bit of a crush on her at the time and relished the moment of singular attention. People don’t change much, John has realised, they just get more pretentious. They disguise their petty deceits with claims at farcical motivations and hide what they want because they’re terrified of being laughed at. Children and adults are the same, at the core. Sometimes he envies Sherlock for being above it all.

“John,” Sherlock says, in the strained tone that means he’s trying hard not to laugh. He’s a brilliant actor, but not when it comes to hiding mirth. John wonders what that says about his practise at it. Perhaps Sherlock hadn’t laughed often before they met. John knows he certainly laughs more when they’re together. “You’ve spent enough time with me to know better than that.”

John freezes for a moment. “Oh god. Was I talking?”

When it breaks, the strength of Sherlock’s laughter ensures that it rumbles pleasantly through John’s body and all across the expanse of the bed. “You can touch my hair if you like.”

John blushes so hard he has a momentary fear that he’s glowing before he realises how absurd that is. “Perhaps we _should_ go to the hospital.”

“No, I’ve changed my mind.” Sherlock leans in and offers his head, teasing but intrigued; John doesn’t have to see him to tell. “This is fascinating.”

“Sherlock, what have I said about experimenting on me?” John demands, too embarrassed to be properly angry. Sherlock runs the cloth over his brow, forcing his eyes closed.

“I’m not experimenting. I’m helping. See?”

“Git.” John reaches his hand up to tug harder than necessary at the first curl he finds, and Sherlock inhales sharply.

“Petty, John.”

John restrains the childish urge to stick his tongue out at him, and he trails his fingers along the crown of Sherlock’s head for a moment before pulling away. A low hum of discontent rings out, nearly too faint to count, and John pauses and puts his hand back where it was. There is a moment of silence.

“You don’t want me to be kind to you or apologise because you crave stability and you see our prior relationship as the ideal state of being between us.” Sherlock’s voice is slow, the way it only ever is when he’s stating a deduction he’s unsure of. John’s breath catches in his throat as Sherlock leans into his hand, and he slides it back to twist his fingers into the soft hair at Sherlock’s nape. “You think that cruelty is natural for me, but I’ve been kind to you before. I know I have.”  

John’s heart presses hard against his throat. “Sherlock, I didn’t mean-”

“You seem to say a lot of things you don’t mean.”

John laughs, short and sharp, and pulls his hand away. “I _do_ , though. I talk shit all the time because that’s what normal people do and nobody tells the truth like you, but that doesn’t mean-” John coughs, suddenly, and Sherlock is there with the glass before he can get another word out. He drinks begrudgingly.

“People don’t appreciate the truth.”

At that John pushes the glass away, water sloshing over their fingers. “Don’t you _dare_. Not once have I ever wanted you to lie to me Sherlock Holmes, that was the entire basis of whatever- whatever _this_ is, and I said it at the beginning in the first bloody cab we took together that your propensity to say whatever and fuckall is extraordinary, so don’t you dare tell me that I need things sugarcoated-”

“What do you mean, ‘ _this’_?”

John stops short, breath heaving hard in his abused throat, and comes up coughing again. Sherlock presses the glass to his lips until he drains the last of it, then sets it down on the bedside table.

“I don’t need you to be nice to me, is what I meant.” His voice is hoarse, wrecked, and his head is still spinning. He’s so nauseated he could scream, so he squeezes his eyes shut and pulls his other hand from Sherlock’s leg and presses his palms to the soft skin of his eyelids, massaging against the supraorbitals. “Be appallingly honest or rude as you like, I just want you to be… I don’t want you to pretend to be something to please me or because you’re sorry. _God_ , Sherlock, did we have to have this conversation at arse o’ clock in the morning when I’m sick as a bloody dog I can’t _believe_ you-”

“You started it,” Sherlock protests, and John can’t help it. It’s either laugh or punch him in the face.

“Are you _five_?” he asks incredulously. “Jesus!”

“What if I wanted to be kind?”

John snorts and pulls his hands away from his eyes, only to be startled when Sherlock is closer than he expected. “No, you don’t,” he mutters, running a hand over his scalp. He stops short when it reaches the intersection of skull and pillow, and he leaves his hand to rest because touching Sherlock at this juncture suddenly seems like a Not Good idea. He pictures Sherlock making Molly coffee or helping Lestrade without whinging about it or – god forbid – cleaning the flat, and fights down the urge to pinch himself. Did Sherlock just say that, or was it the fever?

“To you, John,” Sherlock says dismissively. At this angle, so close, John can see the minute reflection of light in Sherlock’s eyes, a small spark of yellow from the window. “What is it you want from me?”

John breathes out. Sherlock breathes in. John can feel the cogs in his brain turning, can feel the exact moment that Sherlock decides _fuck it_ and leans in closer. John can feel every single breath as it passes between them.

“Is _this_ what you want, John? Because it won’t be what you think. I am not good at this, I am not nearly careful enough, I won’t remember to care about _you_ enough, and I will disappoint you.”

“You disappoint me now,” John whispers. “It’s-”

“Fine?” Sherlock laughs shortly, breath against John’s mouth, one hand braced against the pillow next to John’s. “Why is it fine? No one else allows me to treat them so pitilessly; Victor left me, as well he should have, as well any sane man would have-”

“Victor left you because his father threatened to pull his precious trust fund-”

“John.” John inhales, the smell of tea and sugar and pepper and Sherlock. He swallows, hard. “That’s. Not. The point.”

“What’s the point, then?” He shoves ineffectually at Sherlock’s chest. “What _is_ this? What are we doing?”

Sherlock snarls softly and kisses him.

It’s less of a kiss than a messy application of mouth to mouth, hard and frustrated and furious. John is too sick, too tired, to do anything besides tangle his hands in Sherlock’s hair and open his mouth, allow the brief slide of tongues before Sherlock pulls back to bite softly into chapped lips. John lets out a ragged sound, and Sherlock dips in to skim his tongue along the slick brace of his teeth, pressing their bodies together in an awkward tangle. It’s terrible and glorious and John’s head is swirling so fast he may faint, but it’s alright because the tension of weeks, months, perhaps years has boiled down to this awkwardly angled, violent kiss, and John is swimming with fever.

When there is a pause, John gulps down air like a drowning man, and realises that Sherlock is pressed flush against him. Damp lips are mouthing against his jaw, Sherlock’s fervour settling somewhat but still fierce as he presses his fingers into John’s wrist, pinning him to the bedspread as John’s other hand splays against the soft skin of his back. Sherlock’s t-shirt has rucked up against his ribcage, and John smooths a hand down his skin and laughs shortly, tipping his head up to offer better access.

“This is a terrible idea,” he says, humming softly as Sherlock tongues against his jugular. He gets a spine-tingling bite for his trouble, and his hips kick up a little at the sensation. “I _meant_ doing this now. You’re going to get sick.”

“Don’t care,” Sherlock mumbles against his collar bone, and John closes his eyes and gives over to his ministrations. “Idiot.”

“Oi, what’ve I done now, Mr. I’m-Married-to-My-Work-”

Sherlock raises his head, affronted. “Who was it that kept insisting he was straight?”

“I _am_ straight.”

Sherlock trails a hand down John’s abdomen to press pointedly against his groin, and John lets out a groan from between his teeth and digs his fingers into Sherlock’s spine. “Mostly.”

Sherlock huffs out a laugh.

“Look, I didn’t. I don’t know. About this.” John snorts. “I’m not even convinced I’m not hallucinating right now. I had a fever dream in the bath about you kissing me. Then you opened up my ribcage like it was a cupboard started pulling my organs out.”

“I’m sure Freud would have something to say about that,” Sherlock mutters, and John swats at him. “Honestly, John, why would I do that? You’re of much better use to me alive.”

“You weren’t _killing_ me, Jesus, just… I dunno. Looking at them.”

Sherlock’s silence is palpably sceptical as he tilts his head to the side and presses his ear to John’s chest. Or at least, John feels like it is; that might just be the fever, too.  “I suppose that’s valid. If I really could examine your organs without damaging you, I would probably jump at the opportunity.” Sherlock’s hand slides down his arm to cup John’s ribs, tapping idly against his side. John realises he’s matching his heartbeat. “So I deduced that this is what you wanted, you have dreams about kissing me and are aroused by the practise, but you still think you’re heterosexual?”

“Sherlock. Sick, exhausted, potentially dying. Can we-” John pauses, considering Sherlock’s word choice. “What do _you_ want?”

Sherlock hums thoughtfully for a moment, the sound reverberating pleasantly through John’s body with them flush together like this. John waits for his thoughts to sort themselves into a form that Sherlock deems appropriate. “I want you to forgive me.”

John blinks. That wasn’t the answer he’d been hoping for.

“You wanted things to go back to the way they were, but that isn’t what this is, either.” This is true. John waits for Sherlock to talk himself through it, the way he often does with a problem he has yet to solve. John is his conductor of light, he’d said once. The idea makes him smile a little. “I couldn’t stand you going out with all those petty, insipid women. You never read it as jealousy, or perhaps you did and didn’t care. I didn’t comprehend the depth of it until I was gone: miles away from you, and London, and all the things that mattered to me, doing everything in my power to keep you all safe, and all I could think of was the day I could come home to you and sit down at the kitchen table with the kettle boiling and bicker about what was on the telly and watch you try to solve the crossword and laugh at things we oughtn’t be laughing about. And then I did come home and you were so angry, so… _broken_ , and I thought if only I could fix it things would be fine. But I can’t fix you, can I?”

John breathes slowly, heart pounding hard. He knows that Sherlock can hear it, pressed against his chest like he is, and he takes a moment to card his fingers through the detective’s hair. “You can’t _fix_ people, Sherlock. We’re not objects or experiments-”

“What does a doctor do if not fix people?” Sherlock demands, sitting up to stare. John can’t quite see his face, but his imagination easily supplies an approximation of his affronted expression. John can’t help but chuckle. “I understand you better than anyone.”

His voice is petulant in its frustration, and John leans up in an impressive display of strength to kiss him softly. Sherlock presses him down into the pillows for his trouble, and John lets his head spin dizzily for a moment with their foreheads pressed together.

“Fuck,” he breathes, and Sherlock chuckles wryly. “Couldn’t we have done this when I was well?”

“My apologies. I should have ensured that our dramatic and perhaps superfluously emotional _tête_ - _à_ - _tête_  was scheduled around your acquisition of an independently acting, highly contagious virus such as influenza. My mistake.”

John twists his lips to hide a smile, pressing their noses together. “Berk.” Sherlock laughs softly. “You don’t need to fix me, Sherlock.”

“But you’re in pain-”

“Yes, and you can blame yourself for it all you like despite the fact that you did what you did to save my life and the lives of our friends, but that’s not going to change the fact that I’m upset.” Sherlock huffs and pulls back in order to bury his face in John’s neck. “I’m not angry with you, and you don’t need to keep apologising, but it’s going to take time for us to reach normalcy again. And that’s _fine_. But you don’t need to strain yourself, or keep being overly kind-”

“I _want_ to be kind to you,” Sherlock growls into his throat. John swallows. “Why are you so eager to be mistreated?”

There is a moment in which John forgets how to breathe, his mouth moving without sound escaping. Sherlock leans up again to peer into his face, light flickering in his eyes as he blinks. “I’m not _eager_ , I just-” A yawn cuts him off before he can finish his sentence, and Sherlock shakes his head and presses a kiss to his temple.

“Never mind. Go to sleep,” he murmurs, pulling away. John tightens his hand around his nape. “You need your rest-”

“Wait.”

Sherlock hesitates, then leans in to kiss him again. This time is soft, almost chaste, and the gentle warmth of it nearly breaks John. He blinks back a wave of dizziness that has less to do with the fever than it does the impossible man in front of him. “Stay.”

Sherlock smiles against his lips. “I’m in the middle of an experiment,” he protests, but he hasn’t moved. John slides his hand up Sherlock’s spine.

“Please.”

Sherlock inhales slowly, breathing out in a warm rush. “ _John._ ”

He is gone with the soft clink of a glass.

John breathes slowly, listening to the sound of his blood rushing in his ears. The vague ache of desire mixed with the dizzying heat of his fever has been eclipsed by disappointment, but he shouldn’t have expected anything else. With Sherlock, the work always comes first, regardless of how he may feel. Rationally, he knows that Sherlock cares very deeply for the people around him; he defenestrated a man so many times John lost count for daring to bruise Mrs. Hudson’s cheek. John is more important to him than anyone else; he’s never been overly modest, he knows this is true. But he never did answer John’s question. What does he want out of all this? What are they even doing?

“You’re supposed to be trying to sleep, not thinking so hard I can hear you in the kitchen.”

John startles, eyes flying open to see Sherlock stripping off his clothes without any preamble. It’s not like John can see much in the dark, but that isn’t the point. The hall light has been turned off, leaving nothing but the faintest bluish glow from the smaller light in the kitchen and the golden silhouette from the lamplights outside. Sherlock’s body becomes a study in contrasts as he hangs his suit and pulls on his pyjama bottoms, pulling the covers up and settling against John’s side. John allows himself to be manhandled with a severe amount of bemusement.

“You came back.”

“Yes,” Sherlock allows, amusement evident in his voice. “I went to put the samples back in the fridge, tidy up, etcetera. You’re constantly complaining about wasted electricity. I also brought you more water.” He slides an arm under John’s head to pull him closer, forcing him to pillow his head on his chest. He can hear the steady thump of Sherlock’s heartbeat, feel it through his bones, and yes, that must be intentional. John feels like he should be embarrassed by this, but currently he finds it more endearing than anything else. He rests a hand on Sherlock’s bare skin, fingers tracing his ribs.

“You should eat more.”

“Go to _sleep_ , John. You need to rest so you can recover.”

John closes his eyes obediently, pressing his face to Sherlock’s skin. He listens intently to the sound of the cars streaming by, the soft rasp of skin on cloth as Sherlock traces idle circles along John’s back, his free arm wrapped around John’s bicep. He must be bored, lying here. Surely he’s going to get bored. John should have let him run his experiment.

“Stop thinking.”

John snorts, burrowing further into Sherlock’s side; may as well take advantage while he can. Sherlock makes a soft, contented noise, and John smiles a little. Mm, yes, probably dreaming.

“Penny for your thoughts, then?”

“That little?” John asks muzzily, yawning again. Because yes: Sherlock is warm, and this is lovely, lying here in sheets that smell like him, with the constant reassurance of his heartbeat. “Just. Talk to me.”

Sherlock exhales slowly, dropping a kiss to the top of his head and pulling him closer. John tangles a leg between Sherlock’s impossibly long ones, curling his fingers around the back of his ribcage. “About?”

John shakes his head, causing the room to spin alarmingly fast. “Anything.”

Sherlock clears his throat. “There are roughly twenty thousand species of _apoidea_ known to man, with likely hundreds more yet undiscovered. They exist on every continent that holds flora requiring pollination, and as such they are found in every conceivable habitat and country outside of Antarctica. Like butterflies, _apoidea_ possess a long proboscis by which they may acquire nectar…”

Yes, that was it: Sherlock’s pulse, his scent, his voice. John smiles and settles, and sleep descends like a fogbank; at first, slow and steady, and then darkness, all at once. 


End file.
